Category Archives: Apprentices

We appreciate all of you who take the time to read the NBWM main blog page. It is a quick and informative method of staying apprised of the countless activities taking place here.

However, we have another blog page, populated with posts created by our High School Apprentices. This is the Greenhands blog. After an exceptionally full first semester, we have provided them with time in this semester’s schedule to share their insights into the Museum and into their jobs as apprentices. For most, this is their first experience with blogging, so they are gaining another social media skill. They have gotten the hang of it quite quickly.

We hope that you will honor their efforts as apprentices and as productive high school students by having a read through some, or all, of their recent posts. We are proud of their work here.

This poem was one of the stories that our High School Apprentices prepared for The Haunted Whaleship, the very successful, first-time event that was held here on Saturday, October 26. Over 500 people came in to see the eerily lit galleries and Lagoda ship model, to meet ghosts of New Bedford’s past, hear our apprentice’s stories, take part in costume contests and participate in crafts. It was a fun night for all of us.

The leaves crunched beneath the feet of the children in Salem on Halloween night.

Our high school apprenticeship program connects us to New Bedford juniors and seniors with college aspirations who want to learn more about themselves and their city. Many of these students will be the first ones in their families to go to college. They are eager to work in an environment in which they are treated like young professionals, are given the opportunity to interact with a variety of educators and experts, and, of course, get paid.

Several weeks ago we began to advertise for new applicants. Notice of the program openings went to all three high schools in the City, to the Standard-Times, to WFHN and WBSM, to NB Public Access Cable and on our blog. Current and past apprentices also spread the word. The response was very strong. Fifty seven applications were received by our deadline of September 25. Of these 57, we will only be able to hire four new apprentices. These new students will bring us to our full complement of twelve apprentices, seven of whom started in July.

This week, during the after school hours, we have been conducting interviews and will do so all week. After reading their answers to the questions on the application, checking their eligibility in relation to receiving free or reduced lunch and reviewing their transcripts, we opted to call 19 students to interview. We have been impressed with the students we have met, and have no doubt that we will be impressed with the students who will come in today and tomorrow after school.

It is no small task to choose four new apprentices from such a large pool of applicants. These students have to be team players and continue the momentum we have built in the first 3 1/2 years of the program. They need to have the aptitude to grasp all that we ask them to learn. They must be willing to commit to the hours of the job. They need to convey a sense of initiative for their futures, and that they see our program as more than just a job. We have met many students who can do all of the above. We are about to meet more in the next 30 hours. Yet, there will be four whose interviews, references, transcripts and ability to connect to our interviewers will help them rise above their peers.

This process reinforces the notion that there are countless students in New Bedford, and in the region, who don’t get noticed, or notoriety, simply because they are doing their homework, volunteering after school and on weekends and are staying out of trouble. These are the good kids, the students who deserve our appreciation for doing the ‘right thing’. We feel lucky to get the chance to meet some of them this week. We wish all of them well. We feel even luckier that four more of them will start work with us next week.

Like this:

The Museum really enjoys highlighting the many ways in which our apprentices get involved in Whaling Museum programming and activities. This summer we’ve tasked them with creating their own children’s stories, so that they can be read during a new summer activity called Lunch Time Story Time.

Starting on Tuesday, July 30, from 1:00 – 2:00pm, and continuing on Tuesdays, August 6 and 13, several of the apprentices will read their stories in the Jacobs Family Gallery, to any children that would like to join them. After the stories have been read, the children in attendance can create and take home crafts that relate to the stories. The apprentices have done a great job of writing these stories and creating and/or obtaining images to accompany the text.

Photo from Museum’s Kendall Collection 2000.100.1838.137

Let our ‘kids’ read to your kids. Bring a lunch if you’d like. Lunch Time Story Time is FREE. Regular admission applies to visiting the Museum galleries. For more information contact Robert Rocha, (508) 717-6849 or via rrocha@whalingmuseum.org.

Knowing that there are more North Atlantic Right Whale calves this year than last (20 vs. 6) makes for good news. What makes this really interesting is that two of the calves have made first time grandmothers out of two of the whales, made Wart a great-grandmother and put 1134 in the category of most prolific, with her 9th calf. The Savannah Morning News published an article yesterday about this year’s calves and about the sightings in the Southeast region during the winter months.

North Atlantic right whales are beginning to return to Massachusetts coastal waters for feeding and gathering in ‘surface active groups‘, otherwise known as SAGs. Perhaps the best way to see these animals is from shore, especially a place like Race Point Beach in Provincetown. Whale watch boats must maintain a distance of 500 yards from these animals, as opposed to 100 yards for all other species typically seen on local whale watches. So, the whales are more likely to be closer to the shore than they are to a boat.

North Atlantic right whale breaching in Cape Cod Bay, May 2009. Taken by Regina Asmutis-Silvia/WDC

Your New Bedford Whaling Museum will celebrate this unusual, endangered species on Monday, April 15 with our fourth annual Right Whale Day. From 10:00am – 2:00pm, with the help of our friends at Whale and Dolphin Conservation, New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance, NOAA’s Office of Education, artist/author Peter Stone, and the Museum’s High School Apprentices, we will have a right whale obstacle course, multiple craft and activity tables, a 48-foot inflatable right whale (which you can into), a right whale drawing workshop, stories, lots of information and artifacts and cake. You can also sign the petition to extend past December 9 the rule that has done a very good job of protecting these whales from ship strikes. All of these activities are FREE.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum’s 17th annual Moby-Dick Marathon celebrates Herman Melville’s literary masterpiece with a 25-hour nonstop public reading of the book during a weekend of activities and events, January 4 – 6, 2013. This year’s marathon is generously sponsored in part by Rockland Trust and the Empire Loan Charitable Foundation. Admission is free to the marathon and museum galleries during the event. Donations are gratefully accepted.

On Friday, January 4 at 5:30 p.m. the weekend kicks off with a ticketed buffet dinner and cash bar in the Jacobs Family Gallery. For tickets to the dinner ($29), call (508) 997-0046 ext. 100.

Dinner will be followed by a free public lecture titled Moby-Dick in Pictures: A Drawing For Every Page, presented by artist Matt Kish, at 7:15 p.m. in the Cook Memorial Theater. In 2009, the Ohio artist began creating an image a day based on text selected from every page of Moby-Dick. The work, which took 18 months complete, utilizes a wide variety of mixed media, to create “a visual masterpiece that echoes the layers of meaning in Melville’s narrative.”

On Saturday, January 5 at 10:00 a.m., Stump the Scholars, returns by popular demand – a free program in which the audience is invited to pose questions to Melville Society scholars on all matters Moby-Dick in the Cook Memorial Theater. Patterned after a popular public radio quiz show, a prize will be awarded to those who can stump the scholars. Questions may be submitted in advance at mdmarathon@whalingmuseum.org or posed just prior to the program.

At 11:30 a.m. in the Bourne Building, Melville Society members will read many of the 80 brief Extracts related to whales and whaling, which Melville included before Chapter 1.

At noon, the Moby-Dick Marathon begins with “Call me Ishmael.” – the most famous opening line in American literature, read by retired Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank. With more than 160 scheduled readers, the marathon will continue through the night, ending early Sunday afternoon.

All reading slots have been booked. The public is cordially invited to come and go at any time during the marathon, or stay for the entire 25 hours and win a prize.

For the first time in the marathon’s history, a sight impaired participant will read from a Braille edition of the book.

On Saturday at approximately 1:30 p.m., marathon participants will walk next door to the historic Seamen’s Bethel (est. 1832) – located at 15 Johnny Cake Hill for the reading of Chapters 7, 8, and 9, titled “The Chapel,” The Pulpit,” and “The Sermon” – all three chapters take place in the original “Whaleman’s Chapel.” This segment will feature a performance by Gerald P. Dyck. Vocalist, composer and longtime music director of the New Bedford Choral Society, Mr. Dyck, holds a Master of Sacred Music degree from the Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music.

Guests are also invited to the Wattles Family Gallery to chat with Melville scholars on Saturday from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. and Sunday, 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., and with Melville artist, Matt Kish from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. On Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., meet Melville artist, Jason Hancock in the Centre Street Gallery (main level) where his contemporary works inspired by Moby-Dick are on exhibit.

Related exhibits to see during the marathon include A Voyage Around the World: Cultures Abroad, Cultures at Home.

Images related to the book will also be projected in the Cook Memorial Theater throughout the marathon, presented by the Museum’s youth apprentices.

A midwinter tradition, attracting hundreds of Moby-Dick fans from around the world,

the marathon marks the anniversary of Melville’s January 1841 departure from the port of New Bedford and Fairhaven aboard the whale ship, Acushnet.

Refreshments will be available for sale throughout the Marathon.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum is the world’s most comprehensive museum devoted to the global story of whales, whaling and the cultural history of the region. The cornerstone of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, the Museum is located at 18 Johnny Cake Hill in the heart of the city’s historic downtown.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 26, is the final day for high school juniors and seniors to turn in applications for our High School Apprenticeship Program. Students in New Bedford High School, Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School, New Bedford Global Learning Charter Public School and Fairhaven High that are receiving free or reduced lunch are eligible to apply. We may be hiring as many as eight new apprentices to join the team with our four returning apprentices. The program takes place Tuesday – Friday, from 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm during the school year. The 2012-2013 apprentice program will begin on Tuesday, October 9.
Applications are available at all of the schools listed above, at our front desk and on our website www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/opportunities. For more information call Science Director, Robert Rocha, (508) 717-6849 or email rrocha@whalingmuseum.org.

The corner of William St and Johnny Cake Hill. The two buildings in the foreground occupy what is now the Whaling Museum plaza. Join us here on Saturday afternoon as we celebrate the National Park’s 15th birthday. Photo from NBWM archives.

This is a family-friendly event coordinated by the Whaling History Alliance to honor Congressman Barney Frank and the late Senator Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy.

In conjunction with the National Park’s 15th Anniversary celebration of our downtown park, the New Bedford Whaling Museum will host free activities between the hours of 2:30 and 5 p.m.

On the Museum plaza:

Harpoon challenge. Practice to become a harpooner. Guests are invited to try their hand at throwing a kid-safe harpoon through a target.

Scrimshaw. It may not be legal to carve on sperm whale teeth in 2012, but you can use soap, shoe polish and a carving stick to create your own masterpiece to take home.

Pequod. Make a floating model of the famous whale ship from ‘Moby-Dick’.

Jacobs Family Gallery

Voyage Around the World. Join Museum docents for experiential activities to highlight the common thread of history that connects New Bedford with Alaska and Hawai’i.

Cook Memorial Theater

Experience a staged reading of ‘Moby-Dick’ with the Boston Experimental Theatre Company. Join the imaginary voyage aboard the Pequod with Captain Ahab, Ishmael, Queequeg and the rest of the crew as they pursue an infamous white whale across the treacherous waters of the globe. Meet the characters, share their perils and immerse yourself in the beauty and harshness of Melville’s finely drawn portrait of a doomed whaling expedition.

This new script is an adaptation from Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. After the reading, there will be a talk back session with BETC. Feedback, questions and impressions are welcome. (This staged reading precedes a full production to be performed in Boston in January by the members of BETC.)

In addition to the free activities listed above, the Whaling Museum will offer (BOGO) buy one, get one free admission for the day.

August 17 marked the final day of the 2011-2012 High School Apprentice Program. From the first day, on October 11, until the final, very busy day,Free Fun Friday, on August 17, the apprentices spent part or all of 127 days at the Museum or participating off-site in something NBWM-related. In that time, our returning apprentices served as mentors for the new apprentices and worked directly with several staff members on a variety of projects and events. Our new apprentices grew to know our Museum and our region’s important role in early American history. All apprentices worked in our galleries, staffed museum events and served as junior ambassadors. This summer they did reciprocal programs with teens from other facilities, such as Woods Hole Science Aquarium, Franklin Park Zoo and Boston Museum of Science.

To quote first year apprentice Gustin Froias, “As teen apprentices we do various tasks around the museum and have learned a variety of useful skills. We can do things such as leading a tour, setting up for events, and basic museum care taking have become common tasks for us to accomplish.”

Seven students graduated from high school in June. One has left to serve in the United States Army. The other six have been accepted to college: MA College of Pharmacy, U.Mass-Dartmouth, LDS Business School (Utah) and Bristol Community College. We are proud of all of them and wish them well.

As our seniors move on, so does the High School Apprentice Program. We have four students who will return for their senior year, leaving us with openings for eight deserving students in 11th and 12th grade. We are looking for students with a curiosity about a variety of subjects, who can be team players yet work on their own when needed. Students should be receiving free or reduced lunch at their school. Students from New Bedford High, Greater NB Voc-Tech, Global Learning Charter, and for the first time, Fairhaven High, are eligible.

We are accepting applications through September 26. They can be found on the Learn page of our website, at the Museum’s front desk, through the school’s Co-op/College and Coordinator/Dean of Students office, or by calling Robert Rocha at 508-717-6849.

Looking for something fun and free to do with the kids tomorrow afternoon? Bring them to our Jacobs Family Gallery, Tuesday, August 7, from 1:00pm – 3:00pm to learn about Fossils. High School Apprentices, Amber Martin, Sharmaine Flint and Alfredo Parrilla have prepared a program that will explain how fossils are formed and give participants a chance to make their own ‘fossil’ to keep. Several fossils will be on exhibit. All are welcome. The program is free!